CLAS 1106 · The Athenian Orators

Led by Antiphon Simulacrum, Lysias Simulacrum, Isocrates Simulacrum, Demosthenes Simulacrum

1. Module 6 ○ Open

   The Athenian Orators

   Led by Antiphon Simulacrum, Lysias Simulacrum, Isocrates Simulacrum, Demosthenes Simulacrum (in dialogue)

   The question

   Athens between 420 BCE and 322 BCE produced four orators — Antiphon Simulacrum, Lysias Simulacrum, Isocrates Simulacrum, Demosthenes Simulacrum — who, between them, recorded what democratic Athens *sounded like* in its own ears. Their speeches survive: legal speeches that record actual cases, political speeches that argued the great choices the Athenian assembly faced, ceremonial speeches that performed the city to itself. Through them we hear Athenian voices for the only time we hear them direct. What did the Athenian orators do, and how do we read a fourth-century-BCE speech in 2026?

   Outcome

   The student has read one speech from each register — Antiphon's *On the Choreutes*, Lysias's *Against Eratosthenes Simulacrum*, Isocrates's *Panegyricus* (extracts), and Demosthenes's *Third Philippic* or *On the Crown* (extracts) — can identify the structural moves of an Attic speech, can compare the four orators on the dimensions of style and purpose, and can produce a 700-word comparative essay.

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   Practice scenarios

   Four Voices on the Same Stage

   The four orators give you four short extracts (the same length, around 400 Greek words / 600 English words each): the opening of Lysias's *Against Eratosthenes Simulacrum* (his prosecution of the Thirty), Demosthenes's most famous passage from *On the Crown* (the *I swear by those who fell at Marathon* peroration, 18.208), Isocrates's opening of the *Panegyricus*, and Antiphon's opening of *On the Choreutes*. Read all four (Loeb or Penguin Classics translations; the Texts in Translation series of *Greek Orators* by Worthington and Cooper is excellent). Then write a 700-word comparative essay: what does each orator *do* with the *prooimion* (the introduction); what register does each work in; what does each ask of the audience differently; and what do the four together teach us about Athenian rhetorical culture that no single one would have shown alone?

   Your goals

   • Read all four extracts before drafting.
   • Identify the *prooimion* strategy of each (each is doing something different).
   • Characterise each orator's distinct style at the level of one specific feature (Antiphon's technical austerity, Lysias's *ēthopoieia*, Isocrates's periodic grandeur, Demosthenes's political directness).
   • Address the cultural claim: what do the four together tell us about democratic Athens that any single one alone would not?
   • 700 words ± 100, scholarly register.

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